IT Correspondent
New Delhi, Dec 26 :
Vodafone Idea Ltd slipped further behind its main rivals in terms of subscriber base, as it net lost 2.7 million mobile subscribers in October, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showed.
In contrast, its rivals Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd saw an increase in their subscriber base by 2.2 million and 3.7 million respectively, which helped them further consolidate their position as the largest and second largest operators in the country.
Reliance Jio had 406 million subscribers as of October end, while Bharti Airtel had 330 million. Vodafone Idea, which was once the largest operator in India, slipped further behind its rivals at 293 million. Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has a 35% market share of wireless subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel at 29% and Vodafone Idea at 25%.
Even in addition of wireless broadband subscribers, Vodafone Idea was behind its rivals, adding just around two-thirds of a million wireless broadband users. On the other hand, Bharati Airtel expanded its wireless broadband user base by nearly 7 million to 170 million and Reliance Jio increased by almost 4 million to 408 million.
India’s active wireless subscriber base also increased by 2.5 million to nearly 961 million. About 97% of Bharti Airtel’s total subscriber base was active during the month, the highest in the country, while for Reliance Jio it was 79%. Almost 89% of Vodafone Idea’s user base was active.
In wireline services, Reliance Jio added the most number of users at nearly 246,000, taking its total to 2.32 million, while Bharti Airtel’s subscriber base rose by around 48,000 to 4.46 million. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the leader in wireline telephony, lost over 176,000 users at 7.56 million.
As for Broadband service, top five service providers constituted 98.85 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of October 2020. These service providers were: Jio Infocomm Ltd (408.06 million), Bharat Airtel(170.23 million), Vodafone Idea(120.50 million), BSNL(25.87 million) and Atria Convergence(1.74 million), TRAI report stated.
